Knowledge based production scheduling for advanced manufacturing

Knowledge-based systems (KBS) provide a range of techniques which address outstanding problems in the control of production scheduling. They still suffer some of the disadvantages of computerised management systems, but ongoing research is extending their capabilities. Some of these technologies are becoming available in commercial products, and there is a growing body of experience in their application. The advantages of knowledge-based scheduling over mathematical techniques are shown to include the fact that a KBS provides explicit representation of knowledge about the problem, and is able to justify decisions. A KBS scheduler can be superior to human schedulers in the ability to look past short-term crises, or the temptation to be locally `greedy´ in resource allocation. It can also manipulate a greater number of relevant variables and give more consistent performance, but it is noted that performance of human schedulers can be very high, and in many cases superior to automated systems